To better understand the world of marketing, I worked as a market research interviewer for a research firm, Richard Day Research (RDR), in downtown Evanston, Illinois.

Although I conducted telephone interviews on various topics, like from the political and health-care industries, I mainly administered surveys with business professionals in the financial industry.

Seems easy, right?

Try asking these financial professionals to participate in surveys during the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression.

And then try to have the participants take the time to complete the survey while asking some questions that people may not want to talk about at the moment, such as one's current financial situation, or outlook on the economy.

Rather than being an easy task, it turned out to be quite challenging.

Luckily for me, I enjoy challenges.

I was able to persuade and convince many of these financial professionals to not only take the surveys, but also to complete the surveys - this was very important because if the survey was only partially completed, it could not be counted toward the total population of surveys.

During my experience with RDR, I not only learned more about the world of marketing, but I also bettered my skills and helped our clients in obtaining information that would have normally been hard to obtain.

About Richard Day Research (RDR):

RDR began serving corporate, not-for-profit and government clients in the late 1970's. Clients consisted of companies from a variety of industries, including government, financial, and health-care industries. RDR worked with clients in developing insightful, cost-effective research that can help solve their problems.